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Cell Phone Makers Patent "Brain Shields"
CyberLeader writes: "An article in the UK Times is reporting that cell phone manufacturers have patented 'brain shields,' or components intended to reduce the stray EM radiation that might enter your noggin from your phone. This despite their consistent claims that cell phone radiation is harmless."
The paranoid have been using these for years ;-)
These guys are serious, they even advertise on various Discovery stations. Here, on this site, you can buy not only an antenna to enhance the signal your cel phome produces, but also a wave scrabmler to reduce your cel phone's signal (cel phone radiation that hurts you only comes out through the earpiece, after all)
Only in America.
The argument was never that the phones didn't produce radiation. It was that the radiation wasn't harmful, and didn't cause brain tumors.
Does that mean you can't create something that will block the radiation? Of course not. Will it prevent brain tumors? Of course not. Will it sell more phones to people who are afraid of tumors? Yes. Is it better to have a patent on it so your competitors can't sell phones with the same feature? Of course.
It's all about the benjamins, baby.
Just remember that life is a terminal sexually transmitted disease.
Radiation, true or not true, they will still be quick to cash in on the fear of the mass public who will buy unneeded things if it promises something that sounds good to them. You could sell most people anything if it claims to calm their fear of something.
IRNI
maybe it is all a ploy by the "beowulf cluster" of cell phones (an advanced AI) to kill us off and take over the planet!
The cell phone manufactorers know about the phone's underground plot and until now had no weapons to fight it!
Seriously..
My tinfoil cap I've been using ever since
the radio tower in Des Moines told me to
join the Backstreet Boys, that's prior art,
man. No fair..
Does anyone else see a large shipment of Magic Antenna and Radiation shields arriving at that guys warehouse next to all the 2600 cartirdges, vibrating Mr. Potato-heads and Aura vests? ..
As seen on TV!
(I know of at least one project with Conexant and UCLA directed at using photonic crystals to point cell-phone antenna output away from the head for just this reason.)
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
You betcha! Thanks!
It's the witty oneline insults that make me keep coming back to Slashdot! Leet! Keep it up, gents!
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Yum! Keep it up, old chap! Right-o!
All I can say to that is damn, am I jealous of my dear mother! Ha ha!
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I'm writing with a laptop with an Orinoco card sitting on my *lap.*
Am I imagining a tingling feeling down there, or should I be worried?
and that is the problem. Listen, you can dismiss this poster if you wish, but that does not mean that everything is just peachy. The litigousness of this country is, in my view, one of the greatest threats to this country. You may think it has no impact, but if you were either in a position of a responsibility or a little more perspective you'd realize that it impacts you too. These are much more than just isolated incidents.
For instance, 10 to 20 years ago, you could go to a neighborhood pool and have a reasonable chance of finding a diving board or a slide. These days, they're almost entirely gone.
You want a cup of coffee? Sorry, you can't have that as hot as you like, restraunts have reacted too.
I know physicians with unblemished records, in Philadelphia, that pay in excess of 100k dollars a year in malpractice insurance. The average is somewhere around 60k a year. Guess where that money comes from? Out the physicians pocket? Ultimately, much of it comes out of yours. Though many of them simply cannot manage it and have been effectively been forced to close down.
You want to startup a medical devices or biotech company? Better checkout the insurance costs there.
I could go on, better let me lay it out for you. It discourages people from investing money. It makes hard working people that much less wealthy, because they have to pay high premiums just to stay in business. It creates watered down products. It takes away the consumers right to decide matters for himself, since everything will eventually get watered down so that the biggest idiots can not possibly hurt themselves (or even claim that they did). Even charities and non-profits have had to make cutbacks of all sorts, just to minimize their exposure.
These effects are real and undeniable. I do not see how anyone can defend it. It does little to help those that are truely injured--it is too slow and too inefficient, too much of the money ends up in the lawyers pockets too.
"No time for play", The Economist
Irrelevant? Hardly.
And diarrhea. Just the thought of applying the latest Service Pack, even on a test machine with good backups at hand, gives me the shits.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Show me ONE paper by a scientist who didn't attend "Bob's Skool o'Science Stuff" which demonstrates that non-ionizing radiation AT THE LEVELS PRODUCED BY CELL PHONES has a detrimental effect. Then we'll talk. For now, I'm rating you at the same level as the guy with the sandwich board who keeps telling me the world is about to end due to the CIA/UFO conspiracy.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
First of all, rats ain't people. Has anyone done these studies on people? It shouldn't be hard to give cell phones to 100 college students, have them talk on them for one hour, and then test their short term memory vs. a group which talked on a land-line phone for an hour. Memory tests would be trivial; dye injection is a bit trickier, but could be done. The fact that this research isn't out there is highly suspect. It's the first thing I thought of, and I don't do this for a living.
Secondly, some of this data is seriously old. #4 is from 1982. It was self-published (Via the SUNY-Albany press), not published in a peer-reviewed journal. The peer-review process might have its problems, but I trust it a heck of a lot more than some guy who publishes stuff on his own.
#5 is from 1974 in a Warsaw Bloc country. I have no idea what sort of review it would have undergone, and I have no idea how valid its methods are. Unless you read Polish, I don't think you know what it says, either.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
doesn't the wavelength matter as much as the emitted power? these things are shooting microwaves... and there's some sort of inverse square relationship between wavelength and emitted power that i don't remember. something like 1 watt at 30 MHz is nothing like 1 watt at 1800 MHz (sorry, i majored in philosophy, i don't remember the equation and don't feel like looking it up. in my discipline, we're still figuring out whether or not you exist. cut me some slack).
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Of course they'll patent "brain shields". If the media suddenly starts telling people that blue cars are more likely to kill you so they can sell more ads/newspapers/hits (and lets face it that's what the real problem here is), then gm is gonna make less blue cars, doesn't mean they're admitting that there's a problem.
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I've seen some middle-aged women who go through diet soda like there's no tomorrow. Yeah, I know it's a stereotype, but walk into any office building; you'll see for yourself. The best part is, they won't drink coffee because it has too much caffeine.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Gee. A device designed to take a modulated electric signal and turn it into sound...takes a modulated electric signal and turns it into sound.
Fucking amazing.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Radiation falls into three main categories:
No, it doesn't. That's the grade-school version of things. I work at a particle accelerator, and we also have to worry about X-rays (lower energy than gamma, but still dangerous), neutrons, and protons (they're what the cyclotron accelerates).
3. Gamma Radiation - This is what cellphones give off. They are simply high energy photons with a specific frequency. Light might be considered gamma radiation. The higher the frequency, the more damaging they are.
Here, you're just plain wrong. Gamma and visible light are both subsets of electromagnetic radiation, but they are not the same thing. Gamma photons are much higher energy than visible light photons, and microwave photons (what cell phones emit) are lower energy. This is extremely important, because, below a certain threshold (I believe in the UV region), electromagnetic radiation is non-ionizing, meaning that the photons don't have enough energy to ionize atoms and create free radicals.
Why does that matter? That mechanism is the main way electromagnetic radiation can cause tissue damage, besides thermal effects. Since cell phones emit microwaves, which are non-ionizing, we don't have to worry about it too much. As for thermal effects, cell phones don't put out nearly enough power to dangerously heat your brain.
It's still possible there's some mechanism by which microwaves affect the rate of some chemical process in the brain, which, through some complicated, indirect mechanism, increases the risk of cancer, but it's very unlikely. Nobody has found such a mechanism, and there's no good evidence to suggest a cancer link. If you're worried about radiation, get your basement checked for radon. About half of your annual dose of radiation probably comes from radon decay (more if you live in France or certain other places), and, if you're going to be paranoid, installing good ventillation in your basement is the easiest, cheapest, and least foolish way of doing so...
I have the same reaction. Except it seems to happen when OTHER people use their cell phones near me.
All this is doing is changing the radiation pattern coming out of the phone. Not only will this likely do little to stop any RF heating caused by the phone, it could very well be counter-productive.
Imagine a lamp, minus shade, in an otherwise empty room. The light from the bulb lights the room pretty evenly (save for right under the lamp). This is what is known as an isotropic radiator. It radiates the same amount of light in all directions. An antenna like this is called a 0 dBi (0 decibel isotropic) antenna. It has no "gain".
Now, imagine that you put a mirror on one side of the lamp. Now, one side of the room is dark, and one side is getting twice as much light. This is NOT an isotropic radiator. On the side of the room that is getting twice as much light, you have 3 dBi gain (3 dB is double, and again this is related to an isotropic radiator. dB are ALWAYS a relative measurement.) This is what these alleged "brain shields" are doing.
The problem: what if the cell site is on the dark side of the room? The cell site will tell the phone to increase its output power - in effect, the site is saying "It's dark over here, turn the lamp up!". Now, you have a brighter lamp, so more power available to do "bad things", but your call still sounds like crap.
If you are worried about this sort of thing, don't use a hand-held phone: use a car phone, with the antenna properly mounted on the roof. You will be in the RF shadow (you will be "under the lamp"), and you will still be able to make calls (please, just don't do so while driving.)
Now, this all is largely BS, as modern phones, at maximum power, only put out 100 mW of power - shine a good flashlight on your head and you are getting more radiation, at a higher energy per photon, than your cell phone. We won't even talk about going out under that big fusion reactor in the sky....
Do you go skiing? Do you go into natural caves? Do you fly on planes? Do you live in a brick house? Do you have a basement? Then you are placing yourself at more risk of radiation damage than using your phone.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I've seen this discussion come up a few times lately in social situations and most people just don't get it it. At all.
As soon as most people hear the word "radiation" they become scared out of their wits. I would bet that 80% of the North American population couldn't even acurately define the word. All they know is that in "The Hunt For Red October" they said radiation was bad! It must be bad!
Damn near everything that uses electricity radiates microwave or EMF energy. Your toaster, blender and hair dryer all put out more EMF energy than a cell phone.
It is possible that the energy from cell phones can cause a phyisical reaction, we don't know, but just beause the word radiation is used it's not automatically a bad thing.
"There's a sucker born every minute."
The cellphone industry is trying to do two things:
This isn't some sinister plot, this is a rediculous response to some rediculous junk science. A study is released, intended to be reviewed by the scientific community, and the media picks up on the story and turns it into a full-blown scare. We saw it with Alar, with power transmission lines, and now with cell phones. But because people don't have the logical or scientific skill to determine the truth, they allow themselves to be scammed twice.
As a sidenote, those interested in such issues of Junk Science and how it's screwing you over should check out the book Gallileo's Revenge by Peter William Huber. It goes into considerable detail on how pseudo-scientific claims are exploited by lawyers and interests groups to serve their own policy purposes.
Actually, most scientists use the term gamma radiation only for electromagnetic rays of a very highly frequency, as usually only found in radioactive decay. Gamma rays have a higher frequency than X-rays, which are higher than ultraviolet, which in turn are higher than visual light, which is still zillions times higher than even the most high frequency radio waves. It would make more sense to compare the mobile's radiation to microwaves, rather than to gamma rays.
The debate over whether electromagnetic fields cause cancer has been debated for quite some time. Most often cited as examples of this connection between electromagnetic waves and cancer are power lines and people who live next to them who get disproportionately more weird cancers than the rest of the population. One theory that's popped up recently to explain this is that it's not the EM radiation from that power lines directly causing the cancer, but that the electric lines ionize the nasty pollution in the air, thus allowing the harmful particles to stick to human body parts like lungs far easier than they otherwise could in an unionized state. A few studies done supporting this theory showed that people who lived downwind from the power lines were more likely than average to get cancer. Could it be possible that it's not the EM radiation from cell phones that's directly causing cancer, but instead indirectly causing it through manipulation of environmental carcinogens?
Huh? Protecting the public health is a legitimate function of government. It'd be nice to know that those needles were offered as part of an overall effort to reduce drug use in the first place, but I certainly consider it to be a more legitimate function of government than giving massive handouts of taxpayer money to industries & rich individuals (e.g., through pork-barrel spending & protective legislation).
Cell Phones do not cause brain tumors. It's been scientifically proven, but most of us know that. My grandfather worked with EM (RF or whatever) emissions for all of his life and he didn't get cancer. The levels of RF he was using (and I too as a ham) are many times higher then a puny Nokia phone. Those typically only have abut 1-2 watts out, but no more then 5 watts. I use a 5 Watt handheld radio daily and a 25 watt base (with the antenna inside even...damn antenna restrictions) regularly with no ill effects. If that ain't proof I dunno what is. Those "shields" as seen on TV just plain don't work as intended and neither does the other goofy thing that goes with it, the internal antenna dohicky. Sure parasitic elements can help redirect your signal in a certain direction, but boost your reception? Doubtful. Even if, when in transmit mode which on a cell phone is pretty steady, the gain you'd get from those parasitic elements would be minimal.
Gorkman
I, for one, appreciate getting 190F (or thereabouts) coffee that actually stays hot on the drive into work. Shall we outlaw tea, since the water needs to be boiling (212F) when it is poured?
Or maybe people should recognize that hot beverages (amazingly enough) are HOT.
Umm...wouldn't the people who tend to buy these - as opposed to seeking out comparisons of exactly how much radiation each model of cell phone puts out, so they can stick to ones that are within safe limits (as determined by groups not on the cell phone industry's payroll) - tend to be the people who don't need to worry about protecting that organ?
for every time I heard something was carcinogenic, I'd have a tumor in my hand from counting all that change.
Do you get a prize if you live a long and miserable life? I didn't get the brochure apparently. I'm just going to keep on grilling beef with a metal antenna on a teflon skillet thanks.
-atticus
Half of your customer base is completely paranoid that your product is radiating their heads, but they still insist on using your product.
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Do you:
a) Do nothing, listen to them whine. b) "Fix" your product. Get sued when someone "discovers" that it isn't fixed. c) Create a shield that will "protect" the people. If the harm doesn't really exist, you are now profiting TWICE on the paranoid people.
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Using a cell phone might be dangerous. It might not. Research seems to indicate that it is not dangerous but research has been wrong before. In other words by using a mobile phone you are taking a risk.
You are also taking a risk crossing the road, eating your meals (in case you choke) and performing basically any act in your life. Get over it. I like using a cell phone so I am prepared to take this risk. This reminds me about an email I received today about how Americans (I am American) are not prepared to except the consequences of taking risks anymore and feel that everything is someone elses fault. Enjoy:
(note: I don't take any credit for this)
Let's see if I understand how America works lately . . .
If a woman burns her thighs on the hot coffee she was holding in her
lap while driving, she blames the restaurant
If your teen-age son kills himself, you blame the rock 'n' roll
music
or musician he liked.
If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer,
your family blames the tobacco company.
If your daughter gets pregnant by the football captain you
blame the school for poor sex education.
If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, you
blame the bartender.
If your cousin gets AIDS because the needle he used to shoot up with
heroin was dirty, you blame the government for not providing clean
ones.
If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame
television.
If a deranged madman shoots your friend, you blame the gun
manufacturer.
And if a crazed person breaks into the cockpit and tries to kill the
pilots at 35,000 feet, and the passengers kill him instead, the
mother
of the deceased blames the airline.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
Haven't you seen the television commercial with the nifty animations and the "Chiropractor" chick? If you buy their "micromineature circuitry-based" Internal Antenna, they'll throw in The Wave Scrambler! According to the animation, this little sticker deflects the harmful waves away from your head when applied to the speaker of a cell phone!
They have to do something, whether the radiation poses a threat or not. I mean, let's face it, in today's litigation-driven society (at least here in the US), it's perfectly feasible for a company that has done nothing wrong and harmed no one to be successfully sued for billions of dollars, based solely on fear and ignorance. Just look at the breast implant manufacturers. Driven into bankruptcy, despite being exonerated time after time by every reputable scientific study.
You can bet your ass that the Cell Phone manufacturers are working overtime on this.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The fact is they're in the business of selling things. If they can sell cell phones, they will. If they can sell cell phones with radiation shielding for more money, so be it. It's simple economics. All this means is that they realize there's money to be made in radiation shielded cell phones, whether or not it actually causes cancer is irrelevant as people obviously think it does and are willing to pay money to avoid it.
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www.stallman.org is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on FreeBSD
The slogan then comes on screen: Are you protected?
Ahh, the entertainment that is possible when you crank up the FUD machine...
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Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Take this post for example...
http://www.emf.com/
http://www.rfsafe.com/
http://www.emfsafe.com
http://www.radiation.org.uk/
http://www.shieldworks.com/
http://emfpollutionsolutions.com/
http://www.cell-phone-radiation-emf-shield.com/
http://www.rpmwebworx.com/cellphoneradiation/
Some of these look like they are a little flakey.
so you are on your own
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
And I was enjoying the slow roast of my ear in case of a dire emergency where i was stuck for nothing to eat...
On the other hand, you have fingers
The problem with the cell phone studies to date is not that they are based on anecdotal evidence, but they are based on epidimeological evidence -- although good epidimeological studies can link cancers with a cause, they do not provide any information on causality, or cause-and-effect.
Also, brain cancers are fairly rare in any given population -- it is generally very difficult to show a statistically significant change in a rare event when the effect is expected to be mild.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
The reason broadcast towers don't affect the whole population is that their effect drops geometrically with distance. Come on. You KNOW that.
Second. Broadcast towers DO have an affect on those within a certain radius. The American Government, despite its support of the telecommunications industry, even recommends that people stay a minimum distance away from Cell Phone broadcast arrays.
Third. Cell Phone broadcast stations are EVERYWHERE. If you live in a top floor apartment and there's a Cell tower on the roof, you're being radiated in unhealthy ways.
Fourth. Theremal effects are NOT the issue. The human body and nervous system is electrochemical in nature; you are 70% electrolyte for goodness sake. If you think that you are unaffected by EM radiation, you have done no proper research or have otherwise been well programmed by the P.R. monkeys. There are a bunch of studies which describe a whole mess of different, creepy effects caused by low level exposure to Cell Phone EM, from handsets. --Everything from short term memory impairment, retardation of object recognition skills, to brain cells becoming permeable to foriegn substances in the blood, to the body's endochrine system of various glands being messed up in countless ways, (the overal effect of which reserchers described simply as causing, 'General Stress Disorder.').
Just because you happen to love technology doesn't mean it loves you back. Denial may be sweet, but it'll also turn your brain into mush.
A "heavy duty for freezer/barbeque" aluminum foil beret will block 97% of the mind control rays that cause American consumers to use cell phones. Remember, don't use the cheap stuff, or for the rest of your unfortunate existence you'll be jumping to obey our alien so-called masters at the sound of the first nine notes of Fur Elise (and that's if you're lucky).
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
It's called a Farraday Cage. Been around for a Century. How can you patent this thing? Some moron at the Patent Office who only studied Law and never took freshman Physics (or even High School Physics) will think this is a great idea and grant the patent. Then the phone companies will extend the patent to cover any electronic device in a metal box ie. computers or car radios or any of a million other devices.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Imagine for a second a brainshield that stopped idiots from expressing whats in their brain! I could go outside again, maybe even stop getting chain letters!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
I remember a while back when there was this whole power line scare (it was thought that power lines were causing leukemia in young children in a certain town in the US). So a researcher did some tests on the effects of highly concentrated EMR (the kind generated by power lines and cell phones--not gamma rays mind you!) on living tissue--and found that it did absolutely nothing to the living tissue.
The results seem to make sense--if EMR was harmful then all of us who live in urban areas would have been wiped out quite a few years ago since we're constantly bathed in the stuff!
It's amazing to me that people will buy into half-baked theories and junk science just because they saw it on the eleven-o'clock news...
-- Shamus
Ackthppt!
And let's not even get into the heart disease issues brought to you by the meat, dairy, television, TV show, computer, computer game, console game box, and console game industries.
:).. I wouldn't want to put them out of buisness before then..
:)
Heheheh.. good idea.. I'll jump on the class action lawsuit against EverQuest.. but only after my char's reach level 60!
"You've agreed to give Bobo the Space Chimp an annual stipend of $20,000.00 by reading to the end of this sentence."
Wow.. I am glad I didn't read to the end of that sentence.. sheesh.. I'm a lucky guy!
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
It might be a good gamble to patent a device that increases the radiation from cell phones.
I'm sure that at some point a study will show its beneficial.
In that window of opportunity you make your big money.
Then another study will come out that says that finding beneficial effects was bad stats, OR, that the beneficial effects dont outweigh new harmful effects just discovered.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
In spite of the fact that they make no claims that the oil is useful or necessary, they do claim patent rights on it and expect renumeration on all products pertaining to said patent.
The application appears to be valid and on its way to approval. That's fine with us as long as they stay away from our Zero Click Ordering patent.
Maybe its just paranoia, but I find using my cell phone for more than half an hour or so gives me a headache. My nokia gets really hot, so maybe that has something to do with it and not evil radiation. Of course it could just be because of the person on the other end too, who knows?
It doesn't matter if cellphone radiation is actually damaging. What matters is that these things will sell, simply because of public curiousity/fear/uncertainty/doubt (CFUD?).
There are other things that may not work, but people buy anyway, like health suppliments.
Also, why is there fat-free water? It must be better than regular water.
Philip Morriss patents Method To Decrease Lung Capacity
AOL patents Method to Increase Porn Sales in Family Entertainment
I could go on with Microsoft, Sony, TimeWarner, but I'm too damn tired....
1) There is a head on one side
2) A hand on the other
3) People want the batteries to last forever
4) The phone should work in the basement of your local bar
These factors make antenna design for cell phones very difficult.
Energy radiated in the direction of the head is wasted, since it doesn't come out the other side. So it makes sense for antenna engineers to design antennas that minimize the amount of energy abssorbed by the body. After all this wastes battery power. No conspiracy here, just engineers trying to improve the performance of your cell phone. Philip
This is explains why 95% of the disturblingly thin women I see walking about downtown are always yammering away on cell phones about the most mindless topics. They've run out of things to talk about, right?
end communication
...gave their customers the option of filtered cancer sticks decades ago.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
i was watching the news today, and there was a section on this concerning some british scientist who reckons he invented the shields, and he's filing a law suit or some such a thing.
He was saying that he likens the whole mobile phone radiation thing to the smoking-is-harmfull and asbestos-etc law suits, saying it'll take a while to develop since the science and public awareness has to catch up.
I couldnt be bothered finding a link since it was on tv, but you'll hear more about this no doubt.
there ya go... now go find that link for me heh
"Before you critisize someone walk a mile in their shoes, that way when you do critisize them you'll be a mile away and
Now, whether radiation from cell phones is dangerous or not is one thing, but I think people need to start waking up to the idea that nothing, given sufficient time or quantity is totally harmless.
Life is about moderation and taking calculated risks.
Perhaps I'm less cynical than most (which would be a suprise to me) but I don't believe this is solely a p/r stunt. Of course when discussing possible harm from cel phones the cel phone companies are always going to put their best foot forward; they will always display the research that suggests that there is no correlation between brain cancer and cel phone use (I'm sure if there were a study that suggested a negitive correlation they would use that one.) But the decision makers of the cel phone companies still know the important point that with out a proper long term controlled experiment (not a study) nothing can be proved one way or another and nothing is known. There is still a chance that the cel phone companies are liable for peoples deaths. So what does a good decision maker do? Just what the article suggests they are doing: you hedge your bets. Even on the safest of car rides with the best of drivers a smart decision maker still puts on a seat belt. This is the same situation. They probably aren't responible and the probably aren't liable but just on the off chance that they are they are trying to minimize the damage - and when I say damage I mean liability. They seem like different situations because one is about the chance of future event and the other is the truth about a past event but ultimatly both are the same situation to a decision maker.
So with this possibilty that cel phone usage will lead to the greater possibility of brain cancer would I continue to use a cel phone? (note my use of "possibility" twice is intentional and not redundant; we are talking about a possibility of a possibility.) Well lets assume that all cases of brain cancer among cel phone users are caused by cel phones (we know this is an over estimate) and then consider how many people die from car accidents every year per capita (we won't even exclude non-car users.) The risk is far higher in a car. So if you are willing to risk your life in a car for the convenience of a car ride then you should have no problem taking a much smaller risk for the convenience of a phone call.
So just how do you suppose we measure brain damage in a group that seems predisposed to it?
The point is not that the brain shields actually do anything-all the scientific evidence so far states that the EM coming off of cells is harmless. It's pure marketing; yet another attempt to offer some "feature" that makes your product appear better than your competition's. Expect to see more "features" of dubious value as the cell market achieves saturation.
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...
How was it flawed? The rats actually got cancer.
The study was flawed because the the laboratory animals in question consumed far more saccharin than any human could. A case per day. 28 cans per day. 28 x 12 Oz. per day. That's how the study was flawed. If humans were to come into contact with 1 oz. of fireplace smoot per day I'm sure that the cancer rate would become astronomical as well. But studies must take into account the amounts of contact with a substance that are to be expected.
Oh, and aspartame isn't harmless either. Neither is the coloring, preservatives, and other shit they put in diet soda.
No substance that we come into contact with is "harmless". Saliva has been linked to stomache cancer if swallowed for 70 or more years.
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
What pisses me off is when women who are YOUNGER than me do that. I'm only 25 for pete's sake. When 18 year olds have a shit fit about not drinking caffeinated drinks really pisses me off. Don't ask me about the arguements I had with my Mormon friends while I was in high school.
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
This despite their consistent claims that cell phone radiation is harmless.
Many soft drink makers switched to nutrasweet (aspartame) because of a flawed study that claimed that saccharin caused cancer.
Even though the laboratory animals were given doses equivalent to a human drinking over a case of diet soda per day.
Public opinion drives these types of things far more than cold hard science.
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
Pinky are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I think so Brain, but how are we going to get a naked and petrified Barbra Walters into a tutu.
-chili snow
The real danger is second hand radiation. It's streamming through your body right now. Every cell phone, every tv channel, every pager signal travels outward from its source. Occacionally these signals cancel each other out, other times they amplify. Multiply by 10s of thousands of sources and viola, 2nd hand radiation experienced by you. I reserve the right to prevent your radiation from entering my body.